Christian Baylis-Gaba '27 Recruiting Profile

Joining Pine Crest's freshman crew team as an 8th grade student meant I needed to quickly develop technical skill and endurance to compete with older and more developed athletes. In this past season, seven of the rowers in our boat were sophomores, yet, our men's junior eight secured a 3rd-place finish at the Florida State Championships and placed seventh at Scholastic Nationals in New Jersey this spring. For us, it turns out being younger is an advantage: next year, the boat will remain mostly intact and will compete in the same event. Our goal is to win at states in Florida this coming season.

Hitting personal development hurdles has taught me to rely on steady focus and dedication to my work ethic instead of reacting. Late last December I actually hit a plateau on my 2k that lasted until May. I became increasingly frustrated as my teammates began leaving me behind. Rather than giving up, I went to my coaches and asked them to assess my outside training. Together, we realized that I had been too focused on improving strength and power and needed to dedicate more time to endurance and cardio. I just spent two weeks at Sparks Rowing Camp in Lucerne, Switzerland, for the Swiss Training Challenge, where I learned more about physiology, kinesiology, nutrition, and specific ways to improve endurance through cross training. Improvement isn’t necessarily linear, but it comes from consistency. Now I’m working daily towards achieving a sub 6:40 2k by the start of the season–and am hoping to be voted captain by my teammates this fall. 

My patience and determination show up in my academics, too: I thrive in Pine Crest School’s rigorous environment and take the most advanced classes I can. I’m an Honor Roll student, and I’m proud that my AP scores in APush and Language & Composition and my ACT results reflect my priorities. Competitive rowing at the college level is my goal, and rowing at a college where I can  embrace both the rowing program and academic life is my priority.